


(we have lift-off)

by contagionangel



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, mulder fox eat your heart out, retrofuturistic vlogging use, slight au where we actually live in the damned information age, some angst and some humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 10:40:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9320054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/contagionangel/pseuds/contagionangel
Summary: #WhereIsKatie trends on Twitter.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i have no beta and am very tired. i hope this tells the story it's trying to well.

On one planet out past the furthest outpost, the inhabitants squint at handheld communications devices, clinging to cheap chromed supports while they jostle on rail-cars. Trending seventh on an intraplanetary networking community, #WhereIsKatie might be ignored by quite a few people.

 

Seventh is still high enough to raise some higher-up eyebrows.

 

"It's like an angrier, more jaded 'I Want To Believe'." says the man in the vid playing in the background. He's gesturing with a glass pipe. "I mean, sure, it's got that 'Missing White Woman' syndrome to it, y'know? It's about this government coverup for aliens, but actually, the more you read it, the more legit it gets. Katie's not the only one missing, she's just the mascot-- cute girl, maybe autistic, wrote a lot of unpublished papers and had connections to major data leaks, like something out of a movie."

 

Commander Iverson has had a very difficult week.

 

Commander Iverson carefully resists lowering his face to his desk in frustration.

 

"This has five million of the-- the thumbs up?" He squints at it. "And what the hell is a Patreon? People are paying him to talk about this?"

 

"Actually, people are paying him for reviews of video games and drug paraphernalia." says the infernal woman. "He just found this interesting enough to make an episode about. There's a lot of attention around it."

 

The ancient landline phone that is not supposed to be ringing is ringing. His work phone is too sturdy to smash, so he's settled for removing the battery and putting it in a separate drawer.

 

Commander Iverson steeples his fingers, leans forward on his hands, and shuts his eye.

 

"I am aware that as /the/ commander on this base, I am not the most approachable of men." he says, dour. "Tell me: am I even in the betting pool under 'committing high treason'?"

 

"Actually, yes, commander." she replies, crossing her arms. "It's the eyepatch."

 

He makes a face like he's bitten into a lemon, but straightens his back. "I want this base cleared off by sunrise. All personnel evacuated, with all personal effects and backups of all personally important data, as intellectual property. I am transferring my digital signature for disclosure clearance to all personnel on base, after which I will be absent without official leave."

 

"Where, sir?" she asks.

 

"I don't know, maybe on some basement dickweed's internet show before I'm extradited and court-martialed." he says. His eyes are bloodshot in the cheap institutional flourescents of the base. "Sam always did love you for your sense of humor."

 

"Still does, I hope." she says. "If he's got another house out there with an alien who knows how he likes his space peas, I'll be in a pickle."

 

__

  
"My friends," the man deadpans in the ten-second video clip, "special effects just got more special, because I'm seeing this shit in real life. Respect."

 

The hoverbike's emoji LED changes to a clapping readout. An upbeat chiptune plays as it twirls, nudging him.

 

His next long video is of him rambling that his brother used a special alloy for the circuitboards with "some meteor metal shit, it's real cheap. Check out our DIY instructions, and if you like it, please donate to keep this show going, and to homing service animals with the people who need them."

 

The very specific premise of the show is two disabled engineers and activists building accessibility devices and partnering with service animals for demonstrations of their skills, overlaid with dramatic narrative about the tech development and the dogs' adventures.

 

"#Katie would have loved this" is the caption that @MrsHoltOfficial adds to the link.

 

Her modest following likes it enough that it ends up in the timeslot between Ghost Hunters and reruns of Cosmos.

 

__

 

r-i-p-mulder:  
hoshit my dad dvr'd the news the day they LIED to us about the kerbwhatever mission and thirst post alert, #bringshirohome

astrolonomer:  
That's disrespectful. You should call the Kerberos mission by its name. It's one of the most historically important leaps in science in our lifetime.

thekatieeffect:  
ok this post has been bugging me isn't it more disrespectful to...i dunno, say something like that about someone who might be dead??

 

__

 

Pidge considered hand-writing a letter to Katie's mother-- er, her mother-- to send through an experimental wormhole. She really did.

 

But short databursts were easier, and her mother refused to give up IRC. So three of her mother's childhood friends got the channel bot's link to the short video on the dead drop server, too. (FTL tightbeaming into a receptor and converter that'd translate the data and burn it to the server was one of the trickiest things she'd tried, and depended on getting her hands on good tech once she was actually in space, so.)

 

"Hey mom, the gravity's off again. I think it's because of the-- thing we did with the crystal. We have a new member of the family! Say hi to Rover. Who's a good sentrybot who's helping me navigate zero-g? You are! You are!" Katie's head pops up over the robot's head. "Anyway, this was the easiest way to direct-drop a few datapackets, and you should get some older videos, too. But you should find someone who can build you the thing I sent blueprints for. I'll be able to chat with you with less lag. It should get to you...sometime next month? Or I'll have sent it a month ago by the time you get it.

 

"Anyway, I can't wait to check the internet again. Not a lot of it makes it out into space. Weird enough, though, I found some kind of intergalactic bootleg of Seinfeld bouncing around." Katie's face falls. "I still haven't gotten dad, but I know where he is. If I'm, uh, still alive tomorrow, I should have more news. If I'm not you'll get a different dead-drop vid."

 

"Pidge, we need to move!" shouts someone off-camera.

 

"Just a second, Hunk!" she shouts back.

 

There's strange scars up and down her, and bruising on her face. She's still lit up with a strange glow in the immense workspace.

 

"Sorry, I used it all rambling, but I must have recorded this ten times. I know we don't always see eye to eye, but I do love you, mom." she says. "Finally, in the event of the announcement of my death, I ask that all documents sent with that announcement go to peer review. Don't let dad's work die."

 

The first time Matt burned himself on a soldering iron, the first time he missed school because he and Sam had been up all night staring at the stars, she knew: she'd lost them to the stars.

 

She'd just hoped to see them at home more times in their lives.

 

That's all.

 

She posts the video.

 

People start building things in their garages, or on the counters of their cluttered apartments, that'll let people in /outer space/ follow them on Twitter-- like astronauts, but actual space explorers. #HunkLives is trending.

 

The first tweet from their official account, two months later, is of a...rock...toad-looking person, flowers on their head, turning their face to the rising sun and humming. Crystals around them hummed in unison.

 

"hunk's not-girlfriend shay" is the text with the video. It's followed by a link to Shay's blog. Each post is illustrated with gifs of crystals grown into beautiful mosaics to tell stories of her childhood.

 

It's a trickle, and then a flood. People are going to moons and other planets with things built in backyards, now. It's a wide and dangerous universe out there, but as stories in short videos and posts and new tech being wrapped in old dressings, they want to meet people from far-off places, too.

 

They're willing to hitchhike on poorly-regulated freighters, take terraforming classes in college, study languages for places that they'd only be able to do small exchange visits in once the ships were designed.

 

But in a world where they had hoverbikes and could print 3d hearts, nobody was all that surprised to be living in the future.

  
__

@MrsHoltOfficial Now we know: she's too good for this Earth. #WhereIsKatie


End file.
